


Sunlight In The Storm

by Britpacker



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Announcements, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21661714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Restored to his ship, Jonathan Archer thought the worst of his troubles were behind him.  An unexpected revelation offers a hint of hope, even as it’s throwing yet another spanner in the works….
Relationships: Malcolm Reed/Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Sunlight In The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> A short interlude during the second half of the "Storm Front" two-parter. It's always seemed to me that Archer and Phlox were just a little bit too quick to catch onto Silik's little act...

“Captain!”

“Hey, Malcolm.” Oddly dishevelled, the armoury officer broke into a distinctly un-regulation jog down the empty hall as Enterprise’s restored captain swung around with a cheerful smile. One look at the grim set of his subordinate’s thinned lips was enough to freeze it, along with most of Jonathan Archer’s blood. “Problem?”

“I believe so.” Profoundly thankful for the sterile solitude that prevailed even beyond Sickbay’s doors, Reed allowed himself to move farther than proper into his commanding officer’s personal space and tilted his head, meeting worried green eyes direct. “You’ve brought back an imposter, Captain. That’s not Commander Tucker.”

_Not Trip? Have you gone crazy?_ The words crowded the back of Archer’s throat but something in the gunmetal gaze of his most level-headed and sober human subordinate held them trapped there. “It sure looked like him,” he ventured, gripping the lieutenant’s arm and drawing him into the shelter of the medical storeroom door. Reed shrugged.

“Wouldn’t expect anything else. T’Pol did mention our stowaway?”

“Silik.” It made a sickening kind of sense, if anything that had happened since the Xindi weapon had exploded around him could be said to. “Mind if I ask how you noticed?”

Reed’s deep inhalation rolled around their alcove like thunder in the mountains. “I realise you’ve known the commander a long time, sir, but there’s something you don’t know about him; and neither does the man in Sickbay” he said levelly. “Trip and I are lovers.”

Reality greyed out. The word echoed through Archer’s head, as alien as if it were spoken in Klingon.

_Lovers._

“I – uh, well you’re right, I didn’t know that, Lieutenant,” he stumbled, fascinated by the flame of hot colour that lapped its way up the younger man’s throat. “But, uh, like you say, I’ve known Trip a long time, and… I mean he’s never… are you sure about this?”

“Trust me, Captain. When I kiss him, Trip doesn’t push me away.” 

He looked so shocked by his own words it was all Archer could do not to laugh. “I’ll take your word on that, Malcolm,” he said mildly, feeling the ship tilt a little – _as if she was righting herself_ , he thought absently – as he stepped back into the hall. “You mind if I ask how long…”

“Two weeks, sir.” The amiable veneer of curiosity achieved what he’d hoped; instead of withdrawing behind the protective shield of rank the lieutenant visibly relaxed, falling into step at his C.O.’s side. “Since the evening before you met the Xindi Council, actually.”

“Well – congratulations, I guess.” He’d identified a degree of mutual attraction (along with most of the ship’s company, although he valued his life more than to say so) long ago, but Jonathan Archer had firmly believed that his two most contrary (and in the words of their personnel files, straight) colleagues would never act on it. “But we’ve got a problem now, Malcolm.”

“Several, actually.” Silik aboard Enterprise; Trip lost somewhere in the middle of a German/alien compound; and them all being trapped two hundred years before their time in a World War Two the history books hadn’t heard of being some of the more obvious. “I’ve advised the doctor of my suspicions, but before you ask, no: not how I came to harbour them.” 

He cleared his throat. Twice. “I’d, ah, be grateful of your discretion on that point, by the way. Trip has _issues_ with another officer that have to be resolved before we can make any public announcement.”

And only Charles Tucker the Third could get himself tangled up with both a barely controlled Vulcan and a hyper-sensitive British armoury officer in the same year Archer told himself, grimly amused by the discovery. 

“All in good time, Lieutenant.” Gently he gripped the man’s arm, hoping to convey both sympathy and support in a way his tongue likely couldn’t. “Have the MACOs standing by. Once Silik realises we’re onto him…”

“Already done, sir.”

Of course it was, Archer rebuked himself. This was Malcolm Reed. The perfect officer: prepared for any eventuality, bar one.

Hesitating outside Sickbay’s doors he gripped the Englishman’s hand hard, cut apart by the worry, the unspoken fear that lurked at the back of those surprisingly expressive crystal-grey eyes. “We’ll get him back, Malcolm,” he said quietly, tightening his hold when the limb quivered with repressed emotion. Reed’s lips pulled together for a moment, then softened into a cautious smile.

“I know,” he said simply. “And – well, I’m glad you know, sir.”

“So am I, Mister Reed.” It was another piece of his existence clicking into place, Archer realised, giving an absent-minded nod of dismissal to set the younger officer striding back to his post. Two hundred years from home with no clear way of getting back, with a crew still reeling and the whole of human history to restore, he’d found something he knew to hold onto.

Trip and Malcolm. If after everything that the universe had thrown their way they could still come together, surely anything was achievable.


End file.
